bits in this long work weekend

this type of ramen noodles was in my cupboard from a few months ago when we visited a different kind of grocery - it is interesting because the seasonings inside came in lots of separate little tubes, chicken seasoning, fried onion, sesame oil with black garlic in it, soy sauce and chili sauce - all separate.  I asked Esme if she wanted to share it with me, and she said yes, so I put the chili sauce tube back in my curry bag in the fridge to try on something else.  Served it up with a boiled egg chopped up in the bottom of each bowl.
 

Hamburg parsley is more of a Spring herb but it is still growing

this is really good baked with potatoes, or in a soup 

I have that dehydrated broccoli that Mark keeps telling me I should make soup from for myself - I might get around to it one of these days coming up

Did all the Japanese yesterday after work, heated up leftovers from the fridge and went to sleep.  Did the package route this morning, and made the ramen noodles, and now am going to go get the Japanese done again for the day.  I do packages again tomorrow, and might be able to pick up some hours on Tuesday but that is tentative still.  The weather wants to rain, but very little of it is getting all the way to the ground.  And I'm tired.

 

Tried to sleep a couple of times after dinner - but I slept before dinner some and now trying to settle down afterwards just kept getting up and doing other things, read a cooking magazine, played a bit of the game, folded laundry, thought about my novela and what details I need to remember to touch on next, made spicy chili sauce on rice, made black tea with milk, did more Japanese on the high level...

today :

Japanese on the phone - level 11 and just crossed into Section 2

Japanese profile on the computer - level 20, at Section 2, unit 18

did Clozemaster, and babadum and baltoslav (several times on the last bit) - I'm getting to where I know a lot of the vocab words right off now, but I will need to start a practice somehow where I then have to spell out or write the word down as well, because I can recognize it, but I'm not confident about recalling it without prompt.

We're still watching that scrapheap challenge show with the Swedish subtitles - I thought they were Finnish, but more and more now they are Swedish.  And I did a bit of a catchup on DL for Swedish but really the level I had gotten to in there (level 11) is such that I need to review for a while before I can make any more headway, as the spelling for one thing is very difficult to remember. 

//I still find it funny, I post a picture of a ramen wrapper and mention learning Swedish and suddenly, my ad stream is full of Swedish suggestions and 'balkans' and oh, so many ramen types and ramen toppings and ramen recipes..... ?? Ga Ça Vi!

bits summer rainstorm

 There is a big storm moving in, the radar shows it will be here in a few hours - just as I will need to be leaving for work.  Someone told me it won't reach here, but I'm up anyway, as I woke up at 3 am and felt the rumbling overhead, and animal faces were at the door asking to come in.  They usually know what is what.  

Our Daphne dog is having a lot of trouble with her knees - she is over 12 now?  She has been coming in the upstairs door, but wanting out the downstairs door instead of climbing back up the stairs.  I've let her out the garage a few times, and this morning I made her a special bowl of dog food with milk because she had been laying on the porch outside most of the night and didn't want to come in because of the stairs.  But she made it.  She is the heaviest of the four dogs, and she has a habit of pulling her tendons a lot.  But this stiffness has went on for a few days and she might be feeling the weather coming, as well.

The potatoes I put out in the ground can benefit from the rain that is coming - it's been dry for a good long time.. and now we get a 'gully gusher' as it is predicting on the one site... I don't want to drive to work in that but it is what it is... 

We watched Ponyo last night, from Studio Ghibli.  It's been years.  Mark said it was 'lush' with all the marine life, and the simple but beautiful depictions of the boy's house, the food Ponyo eats for the first time, the little octopus that is sneaking over the lady's shoe and up into the house.  I understood some of the Japanese characters on buildings, posters and especially when the mother is signalling baka baka -repeater kanji (na) over and over again when she is angry.. I didn't catch all of what the boy sent back to his father at the end, but I got some of it.  

 Drinking more ginger licorice coffee and waiting for daylight - to feed the chickens if I can before the rain hits.. we'll just have to see how that works out.  Started doing my Japanese at level 19 again on the other profile, after refreshing on the phone profile for a while (which is at level 10?).  Japanese has three writing systems and they throw them all together sometimes, and that can get complicated, and make it a little harder to remember everything visually when it can be 'spelled' three ways and some of them are phonetic and some of them are iconographic so you just have to try to remember what it 'sounds' like at the same time.

It's 5 am now, and the rainstorm is rolling in as predicted by my weather site.  I have been telling myself to find a backup wall charger and cord for my phone to put in a plastic bag in my purse, and finally connected that today.  It's been a while since I carried one, and I should.

We're in the Work Weekend

It's the work weekend, for me - and it's been a long day

 

 a little rabbit in the moon

Finished out that chile peanut sauce that I had left in the fridge for two days - served with brown rice and an omelet - that makes Spanish type rice twice this week but this was definitely a different 'sweeter' richer, thicker Spanish rice.  I had added a can of tomato sauce with it, and onions, and boiled it down a little while the rice cooked. I went out to the garden and pulled in lime basil, chocolate basil and 'spicy globe basil'... and chopped it all up fine and mixed it in the same container in the freezer.

Did French and Chinese lessons.  Did not do any other recipe posts.  I did make that sketch in a few minutes with my graphic processor.

It's time for bed, and a longer Sunday package run is expected tomorrow than usual because one person has to be gone.

bounce

true story : when one day you set an alarm for 5pm to make sure you get up and feed all the animals and soforth, but you never actually end up going to sleep and miss the alarm while you're doing things, and then day after day you think - but I do fall asleep for a nap sometimes in the afternoon - a 5 pm alarm makes sense - and just turn the alarm off when it happens, whether you're asleep or not - as a reminder 'I should be awake now, things to do'.. and then weeks later realize : this is just my 5 o'clock alarm now, nothing to see here, move along.. no why would I get rid of it, it's the 5 o'clock alarm, right?  

(above : Loki and Minion enjoying our hexagon structure outside above the fenced in yard)

 R(x)=Pi(Chips + Salsa)

For some reason, I thought of that in the middle of last night and it made me laugh.  I enjoy that - when I am sleeping and something so absurd but highly specific comes up, and I have to wake up and write it down.  It's not always so funny once I've done so, but anyway, it's a spice of life.  Much better than the twisty-turny even weirder dreams I have, some of them are great, but usually confusing, cave of wonders type places, foreign libraries with books that don't exist, work in a parallel dimension type thing and time travel paradoxes etc.

It's been the work weekend - short route but got overheated anyway on Saturday, lots of extra work once had gotten home and sorted myself out - we cloned the prettiest of our coleus plants and some more begonias, repotted petunias and other things.  Then I had some more work today, and we talked about but did not repot the ivies - Mark is thinking about what kind of trellis would be best for those.  And I work tomorrow, too, now - I found out a few hours ago.  Been trying to keep my hands in order, and my knee from hurting, and get enough sleep, took a two hour nap this afternoon but made myself get back up at 5 pm.  

we did six tubs of these!

the purples are so vibrant

 

we're cloning the prettiest ones to increase our gene pool as we will be collecting seed from dozens of plants to save for planting next year's crop

found a little non-dangerous brown ringneck type snake under the watering trough, numerous frogs and beautiful little (and very fast FAST) skinks

Have done Japanese, French, Hungarian, Chinese and Catalan (from Spanish) language lessons.  Have played a lot of Stardew Valley in between things (a 'day' takes about 15-25 minutes in the game, and it can only be saved at the end of a day) and that is all in French.  I find it funny sometimes I have a hard time talking to Esme about what is going on in my game because my brain immediately wants to bring up the French word for everything - Tonneau instead of Keg, Bacal, instead of Preserving Jar.

Duolingo main profile : About to reach level 9 in Chinese, level 12 in Catalan (from Spanish), still at level 10 in Hungarian (from months and months ago), but halfway to 11.  Japanese at level 19.   

phone profile: Catalan at 9, Japanese at 9, Hungarian at 5   Definitely see the differences as I've only been playing on the separate phone profile for little over four months (150 days), and usually just about the minimum, as well, compared to years of work on the other profile and 30+ languages bouncing around, and depending on how much time I have etc.   One thing I do like about this 'tandem' of doing the same language at diff. levels is that it shows me where my weaknesses are in the higher level one when I've just done some lower level stuff and vice-versa.  And the phone has the speaking lessons, which boy - I feel like I know some of these until I try to get that combination to come out of my mouth and sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised and other times I feel like that cat in the l'eau meme (included below, for completeness) that can't get it's tongue to stop curling.

not my pic, for reference only, as it is a famous meme

Will try to find out this week if they know anything more about what happened with our truck.  Originally, they said it was just low on gas, but then I told him about the water in the gas in the town and asked him to check it a little further to make sure we didn't end up with the same dangerous situation from before.  When it started doing the weird stuff the gas gauge was well above a quarter tank... and by the time he got it started and working again, he said the gas indicator light was on.  Mark says that is a good sign something was 'up' there, and condensation or water in the gas mixed with it being an old vehicle could have caused a false reading there, at the very least. 

 

 

I've done the laundry and need to steer myself towards sleep for another long day tomorrow.  Three pink tomatoes from the garden - they look so strange on the counter with our pink and green eggs.  Speaking of eggs, all of the other chickens seem to be doing okay, so far.

we're in the long work weekend

well the chart is done - 15 languages in total, for the week, and I'm coming up on two months with working through the Russian course three lessons at a time - I like their format, and may continue the B1 French course when this one finishes (I'm halfway through, it says) or switch over to Spanish and see if that can help me a bit more.

 

2 am: Super long day-after-holiday, gotten so used to the holiday packages being worked on the holiday but this year we were told to take the 4th off and we did.. but that doesn't mean the packages aren't there waiting for us for the next day, along with the packages that would have been there anyway!  It was just a taste of what the extra surge of the sale later this month will bring us, I guess.. Christmas in July sort of thing.  I crashed after dinner and got up a few minutes ago to do some Catalan and let the dogs and cats in and out. 

When I was delivering mail today I had to go to a certified mail at someone's door and the first waft of their pizza-type food that came out of their house when they opened the door smelled wonderful on an empty stomach, but then the 'back half' of the odor hit me and I could tell it was a chemical food-product and not real food.  And that turned my stomach a little, so I knew I wanted real food when I got home.  I went and ate a pop tart while delivering anyway, but sometimes you get what you can get, until you can get better - and I was trying to drink enough and eat a little to keep myself from getting a headache.

Saw a recipe Carottes Râpées (French grated carrot salad).. makes me think, although I'd really like it about halfway cooked like noodles.  We still have that big bag of carrots to use - and I haven't felt like soup lately and Esme is cooking more little things for herself especially when I'm at work - although she needs to work more on the real food part and not just microwave or cans.  I say that, but the way I learned to cook was circumstances of not having anything easy to cook available - and I don't want to put that on her entirely, either.. part of mine was learned at home as a kid and even moreso when I was in college.  Tonight was a long one at work, so I got home late, and she had just eaten a big sandwich just before I walked in the door, and Mark was getting ready to cook himself a hamburger.  So, I used fresh cherry type tomatoes from the garden today, along with peppers and onions and a few tablespoons of hamburger Mark cooked extra for me, and taco seasoning, and a few tablespoons of rice.  I needed some 'real food' and that fit well enough along with some peanut butter toast.  I eat a lot of peanut butter. 

It will be hot again tomorrow, as well. Another day of delivering tomorrow... work at putting myself back to bed. 

update, 8pm : It was actually a fairly short route, which was good as I was starting out with that bit of a headache, and was still battling it when I got home.  Lots of broth, a bath, dinner with cucumber sauce on pizza (B vitamins) and lots and lots more liquids.  It is 8 pm and I'm headed for sleep again.  I just started on the Danish today on the phone and on the computer - it was one of those I avoided because I had so many other irons in the fire I didn't need more - but after doing Japanese today, and making myself take an extra break to drink more liquid -  I thought - why not?  It is a lot like German, which is also like Swedish and Finnish, and it sort of makes a little rounded parallelogram there as I am learning the words that are close to the words I know, and some identical, but all jammed together a little different. 

exotic pet fair

It was at the Fairgrounds in Jackson, TN, and they had a lot of animals.  It was a dollar each adult to get in.  There were snakes, lizards, sugargliders, birds, mice, rats, a hamster, hedgehogs, salamanders and even alligators (caimans).  We didn't buy anything except a little souvenir pen for Esme.  The other family we went with didn't buy any animals, either, much to the sadness of their little girl.  I was in a down form (little black cloud, someone said) because of the poison ivy and the Benadryl.. but I was there and we looked at everything.  We stopped and had some chicken on the way home.

Off to work today.

bits over a weekend off

Minion putting on her best dark attitude.

Esme has been in school for more than a month now.  Her report card came back with all A's.  And she is happy and liking school.  We took her and her friend out to the dog park today with Lucy and their dog (Shiva), and they had a good time. Lucy did very well meeting several other dogs besides Shiva she had never met before.  We stayed a little over an hour, then everyone headed home.  On the way home Lucy and Esme each had a separate corn dog!

I'm still branching out and trying other ways to bring little updates and income into the house.  It is using up some of the energy I put previously into maniacally cleaning the house.  So, maybe the house isn't becoming as spotless as it might be.. but my stress levels are better.  And we have a few new things from the Amazon work I was doing last month.... a handheld vacuum cleaner, some clothing storage bags and a new shower hose.  I'm working on another card and wondering what I might get Esme for her birthday from it.  The only bad thing is that it takes so long for them to ship it we couldn't use any of that for a birthday present for Esme's friend.  The party was more than two weeks away, but they wouldn't ship for a month.  But.. I have a little under two months for Esme's bday.

I knitted some dishcloths, and read a little bit more of my book (book 5 Outlander).  We watched the first disk of Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson from Netflix, Mark and I did, while Esme was at Grandma's house yesterday evening.  It was better than I expected, yet it did respect the original.  Esme and I watched the original series first few episodes for homeschool last year.  I wonder how/when I'd have her watch this.  Maybe on a school break.

Esme and I talked about September 11th briefly today, as well.  She knows it was horrible, and where it happened - but she doesn't quite sink in what it meant for the nation.  I saw some nice tributes today but generally everyone I met was upbeat and having a nice Sunday with their families and friends.

That was my weekend off... a long week of all-on work now and then come up for air next Sunday again.

Mom Projects

Working on this... it will be a month or so before I get to the done stage.  I tried heddle sticks but they failed... oh well, try again next time.  I wrapped the yarn the wrong way a few times so the heddles will not work as well as they should.

PVC Pipe Loom by Simplified Building
I made a loom somewhat like the one at the link above - but not entirely.
I had most of the pieces for mine on hand and kind of fudged the rest.

The finished area n my loom is about 2 foot by 4 foot.

The other thing is I don't have anywhere to put it as a rug - our dogs would eat a rug like this in minutes.  But, I could probably make a cushion or a bag out of the finished work and make it useful.
And it is kind of an experimental zen project anyway - I like to weave.

Other things:  I finished the Maze Runner series/  The last bit felt like Chicken Run.  I know they aren't really the same.  But, now that the thought entered my brain it is hard to get it out.  I've started on the Sixty Eight Rooms trilogy.

Esme has Martin Luther King Jr. day off tomorrow.  I need to work so early my eyes won't be functioning.  And it is very cold out.  We have a new manager (again) at work.  It is something like every six months to a year they change things for some reason or another.  Could be bad but it isn't - the guy knows the department and has been there before.  It is just the change change change thing that grinds me a little and makes me mention it.

*edit 2024* this became a purse, not a rug, and our dogs now don't eat rugs they sleep on them and keep us from using them as rugs *ha*... I wish I had taken a picture of this loom in it's entirety, trying to build another one now and I have found the original image of the Simplified Building one (not my picture, saved here for posterity as it is gone from original) but no pictures of the loom that I built that was slightly different.

not my picture, gone from original site attempted to link above, saved for posterity

Saturday skate and todo

I knocked a few things off my todo list today.

-Cleaned up the laundry area.  There might be some disgruntled spiders around.
-Got a pair of pants sewn for Esme and cleaned up the sewing area floor some.
-Baked the peanut butter cookies
-Stopped and got the materials for fixing the bathtub surround

--The science and history documentaries for next week came in the mail! :)

And Esme and I went to the skating rink for a few hours.  She started out having a great time but had typical little girl drama moments and ended up sobbing when someone didn't want to share and when another friend went off with other girls for 'a really long time Mom!'.... She dried her tears on the way out and was in a better mood by the time we stopped to look at a few things at the dollar store.  Then she was a big help at the Lowe store helping me get the things we needed.

I've still got the bathroom repair and the floor rug on my mind for tomorrow - and maybe another pair of pants.  We've got some clothes to put away and then another load of laundry to do tonight.  Esme wants me to play dinosaur/dragon egg games.

bits and pieces

Sinus headache hit me hard this weekend- just when I finally get a day off.  The stiff problem with my one foot was a really good reason to want to just sit for the day...but the sinus headache means nausea and headache and can't sleep, can't read etc etc....  I ended up cutting off three inches of my hair again... and a big dose of Alka Selzer, and then we went to town for some supplies.

Esme had wanted me to make a watermelon backpack pillow she had drawn a picture of.  We bought some backing fabric and ribbon for it at the store.  Onion rings and some spicy soup allowed me to sleep once we got home.  After crashing for a serious nap we watched San Andreas (the movie) and I made the pillow.  It didn't turn out half-bad.  It could double as a Halloween costume this year, actually...with a crocheted green hat to match.  I can probably pull that off in time.

Reading : In the Night Garden by Valente.  Wow.  The tapestry of stories is still spinning in my head, as she weaves them in and around and back through themselves as she goes...so it all ends up being the same characters although you were sure the cast was larger as you were reading it at first, it all ties up into the same small handful of people-- you just didn't know the 'King' was that father AND also the son from the other story, and the brother of the princess in the other story, and the evil wizard is the same guy all through his life young and old etc etc.... I'm really only halfway through it and it is spinning.  I wouldn't doubt if she ran some more threads through the second half here... we'll see.

weekend

Esme had a great time at a sleepover this past weekend.

I got a little done around the house, laundry and a new pair of pants made.  Half of her pants are creeping up three inches past her ankle, and winter is on its way.  I'm reading the Septimus Heap books... as I can get them, through the library Kindle system. I have another I've always heard of 'All of a Kind Family' lined up.  I wanted to find Esme a copy of Blue Willow by Doris Gates for someday... didn't see it available.  

Now there are pizzas in the oven, and Esme wants to play more Skyrim after that.  It has been a long weekend. 

bits

We've had a busy but nice day.  We took Grandma to town, went to the library, park and such...and Esme got to play with lots of kids.  I filled up our library cards again with new stuff - including the Sisters Grimm books for me to start reading in prep for her to read them 'sometime'.  They are very funny. I got two of them as I was a third of the way through the first before we even left the library.

We got some great readers at the thrift store and a dollar puzzle...which I had been craving to do a puzzle for some time lately - something about 500 pieces and interesting, and not expensive.  This fit the bill.. and I kind of devoured it at home tonight.  Esme is at Grandma's and Mark is thinking of taking her for swimming lesson tomorrow.

bits

Memorial Day weekend has come and nearly gone. I'm back at work tomorrow, with a long stretch ahead of me. We gave away our kittens, did some gardening and rearranged the workspaces in the house some more.  The delivery of next year's school items arrived - the Astronomy book, a Geology book and a test prep book for second grade language and math that will be supporting material.  She carried the geology book with her to town the other day and was telling me all sorts of things from it.   We also ordered several cartoon series from my childhood.  They have rich language and themes in them, similar to Ducktales - of which she has really picked up a lot from this past year.  As the summer goes on I will add a few other things, maybe -- like more Stink Moody books or something on animals, perhaps.

We've finished the first chapter of the Adventure story - have to type it up and go over it a little but not right away.  She is a little exasperated by the 'I already told you this!' aspect and the fact that it 'has gone on forever' for just one chapter.

Going to my sewing table to see if there is anything to rearrange etc...  When Esme was at the park the other day I saw a beautiful sundress on a little girl that I know I could make...

Weekend

Saturday was 'coconut day' - and we all had some fresh coconut.  We tried the water, but it really wasn't good... salty and slimy.   I ground the meat up in the food processor and put it in the freezer for making cookies.  Esme took the little piece of husk that had fallen off when we ran the screwdriver through the coconut with the hammer.  She wanted to make a necklace out of it -- she had wanted us to drill several oyster shells from the driveway gravel for that, too... glad I started with the coconut husk first.  It spun around a little under the drill bit and caught my finger.  Not much worse for wear.   I asked Esme to get a bit of wool string to put through it for a necklace - and she had grabbed my raw wool and the spinning tool and was starting to try to remember how to make raw wool into yarn. *heh*

We gave the rest of the shell to the chickens and they have worked hard to get every little bit out.  It is funny to hear them knocking it against the log in their yard.

//My space bar is acting up seriously... hard to type sometimes.  Will have to try to fix it again.

Been out in the garden this morning.  It feels good to have a day off.  And, although my wisdom teeth are deciding to go at coming into my jaw again... it is not quite as bad today as it has been several other days this past week. I am losing some sleep over it...and making Excedrin my friend more than I would like to.  The strangest part of it is it keeps moving around the jaw, hurting here, and then there... and then it will be gone for an hour, and suddenly back. etc...  Last time I asked a dentist about it they couldn't find anything wrong in that spot....and a middle tooth cracked and came completly out two months later, which was then pain-free for over a year.  I know they want to just take the wisdom teeth out ///but the sedation was not good for me once and they have never used it on me since. 

Planted:
basil
sage, kale and India Mustard as attempts to edge the flower bed
nasturtiums
gourds
kale and mustard
lots of other flowers
Santa Anna beans
Provider beans
some of the white onion sets
put out as much of  the greenhouse experiments from this winter as possible...
peppers from the store -to match up with the tomatoes and peppers Mark and Esme planted the past  few days.

Found the peony and the hosta (seen below) from last year - and perhaps the poppies are coming up again, too.

Weekend

We did the carnival on Saturday - Esme and I rode rides while Mark watched.  She has gotten tall enough she can ride almost anything - but I still didn't feel comfortable with her riding alone on several of them.  We had to cut one ride short as Esme was not really as ready for it as she thought - luckily we went so early we were the only ones on it at the time and the operator was accommodating.  She bought a little sequined Chinese foldout fan at one of the booths and it is actually a very pretty and sturdy souvenir. 

I put the squash seedlings into the garden and transplanted almost everything else into larger pots.  The folklore here is you don't plant your things in the ground until after the Fish Fry weekend -- I usually break that rule because it is warm enough long before it.  This year, it is not.  It still feels cold out there today for such things...  And unlike any other year - we still don't have our corn in the ground. I imagine the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland screaming 'I'm Late' and running in circles because the garden is barren.

Esme spent this morning building this entire snow castle 'as a surprise to mom'.  I did a little embroidery, that is still not finished.  Then she drew a puppet show background and little cardboard 'sock puppets'  and put on a play for me.  We've had a relaxing day - all except for the coolness.  Mark and I both looked into the water heater wiring to test everything - and found it working properly..doesn't explain why we still run out of hot water halfway through a bath every time.  I learned a lot about something that I had previously only seen in picture instructions.  Aunt Dot has sent  Esme a beautiful book of space transportation and history with detailed diagrams.  Esme has read her letter and I told her we need to write one this week.

This next week will be long - it is my six days-on stretch.
The rabbit will probably still be complaining about the garden all this week *heh*.
On to laundry, some reading perhaps and Esme wants to make Ramen noodles with me later.

 Each villager's house as a 'mailbox' outside it for letters.  The house in the back she said is mine and has a diamond set of armor, a 'gold crown' helmet and a sword.

 Two towers for lookouts for the castle, and armored horses and messenger donkeys with chests on their back for delivering the mail.  There is a 'chair shop' in one of the small buildings where the villagers buy their chairs.

I added the little garden and tree grove in the front when she asked me what I wanted to do in my new city.


For later: Article: Simple Homeschool Baking  We had said we were going to bake bread one of these days... and we haven't done much baking in a few months.  I like the 'once with mom', twice while supervised, and third time on my own method.

project bits

I put the greenhouse together, today - and set some soil out that will hopefully be planted with cabbage and lavendar later in the week.  Our geraniums from our experiment a while back are still going... and we have lots of seed for them if we need to replace them before the season is here.  It won't be here till April - yes, I'm jumping the gun..  but I have a seed addiction...beans, corn..and other things.

Esme did a few of her own projects today - a jungle in her room with vines, a well-drawn monkey, and a temple with gems and a robot guarding them with 'traps'... Then she looked up more goat simulator stuff, sucked me into playing for an hour (we got the statue in the storage container hanging from the crane, very hard even as 'feather goat' - I will try go get it 'regular goat' next time, so we can do the robot quest).. and then she made paper tube nunchuckas with Daddy, and he got out his real ones to show her how to do it with hers.

I sat down at the desk and finished out a few tying of ends on knit projects, repaired a pair of pants and two toys, then played with some plastic canvas to make a little desk organizer thing.  It was nice to get a few little things done...

Now Esme is promising she will have lots to do tomorrow and be in a good mood to do it.. we'll see.

Note to myself:  I should make up a few new planes for the shop, orange and white one and green and white one.  

Mittens with picture and quilty bits

 The new pink and brown mittens.. they fit, but are not very tight in the wrist.

I put the card with her hand tracing in her baby book with the date on it.. it shows her hand size against my hand size, which is worth keeping for the future.

 She asked for me to take this picture, too - without the mittens.

Playing with the telling time book and a clock we made from a coffee can lid.  She saw a clock at the library today in the toys section and was interested in it again.

We asked for a child's library card today.  She has been reading fairly well and we have read four books a week from the library the past few weeks.  I had asked her a few times before and she wasn't ready - but today, we did it. 

We also met up with a friend at the park today for a little while, fed ducks, ran around with feathers and then had to go home in a rainstorm.  We stopped for ice cream treats on the way home and she had a big red spot on her nose from the star bar she ate that Daddy noticed when she got home.  

Little bit of quilt I made up last night - thinking about what to do next with it.. all of the pieces in it are scraps from clothing I made for Esme.  If she settles down for a bit soon I'll get back to working on it.

book bits

Mark caught this picture of me using Esme's crayons and markers to make her another book.

Our 'Mama wrote it' library is getting bigger.. and Esme's reading skills are getting quite good.  She read a lot of words while we were out today, and a never-seen-before very short book that we got in the mail 'This is Biscuit' without any help at all.  It is part of a phonics set for her.  More impressive, she read the words to the book I wrote in her notebook and got most of them - 'The Dinosaur and the Flashlight' contains many more words I didn't think she had a good grasp on yet, and 'look-alike' words, which she has trouble with.  ie: 'ever', 'every', 'anybody', 'another', 'other', etc... 

She told my boss today that she got to read 'The Rat and the Rhinoceros' to her class one day... I'm not sure if she really did.  But if she does get to read them, I will send them.  

We had a BIG day out on the town today, lots to process... and she made plans for what to make for a birthday gift for her friend next weekend.  I made it tonight and put it away.  I think it turned out really cute and I'll probably take pictures and post but I don't want to spoil the surprise for the other girl's family by posting anywhere else.

Will have to take pictures and post the 'Rat' books, too.. the Dinosaur story is also roundabout way about 'Ratty'...  eventually we'll have a set big enough to do something more with.  I read a book called 'The Animal Family' by Randall Jarrell while at the library and checked out 'The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate', which is a Newberry Award winner.  I think, when she is ready for it, it will be an excellent read for a developing scientist's mind :)

kick me in the pants - err.. I need to get some things done this weekend, including pants

Esme has been asking me two weeks now where her gold pants and blue shirt are - not in a mean way, which is good.. but I haven't gotten to them.  I know that means she wears one of two or three coordinating items each week for Blue and Gold day....  And I've had days off - we've just been focusing on other things, like her behavior, reading and math.  I have the blue and gold fabric ready to lay out.  But, the chair I was making for her is also taking up the table and I haven't dove back into it yet.  I also promised a playground trip and 'fun things' this weekend if she brings home a moderately good report 5-10 minute timeouts per day etc.. I think she is there - and I will take her out and spend time with her regardless. 

She is making so much progress.  Her words still turn inside-out sometimes and she will pick the wrong one and not even notice it still.  Sometimes she corrects herself, other times I have to choose if it is a good time to correct her.   She is also picking up lots of other phrases from school she wouldn't get at home, and trying to use them, and when I ask her about a word I am not sure she knows she often gives me a good definition of it.  We talked about 'obstacle' the other day and 'reception' today.  We've been talking about 'the rest of'', 'since' and the topic of verbs vs. nouns and nouns becoming verbs vice-versa. She keeps surprising me, which is excellent.

This is also the weekend before the 'full week on', so if I don't accomplish some things in the next few days it will have to wait a long time to get a moment.

I have been wrapping my brain around the math course I am taking online and I think it is coming along very well - it is not for credit - although it could be if I arranged to get into one of the study groups and really participate... with clothes to make and work and other homeworks, I think my efforts are pretty good. 

Turtz the turtle pillow

 A turtle pillow I've been working on for her to have in her room.

He needs back legs and a tail - but that will take a bit more of that color yarn.

The good thing is, she likes him.

I didn't get much else done this weekend.  She did a little geography and writing practice.  We went to a local event and met up with her best friend again for a few hours.  She spent time with Grandma.  I watched a lot of DVD television while crocheting and knitting this.  I did a little garden yesterday, but failed to process anything... it is all in bags in the fridge.

Still lots of things to do next week, and another full week of school... she just washed her hair and I'm trying to devise how to get her to go to bed on time after letting her sleep in two days in a row.

I got the firmer stuffing by mistake last week - and she says he is not as comfy as she had hoped he would be.  She really likes my hexagon pillow that is on my bed, and it is full of the really soft stuffing.  I guess Mama lives and learns on which she prefers.  I told her the turtle might not be so good for head sleeping but he would be better for sitting on the floor.  So, she tried to take him into her bed with her and found that was not conducive to sleeping... *roll eyes*.. and I put him back in her tent where he was intended to be.  Maybe I can get the other stuffing and do some turtle surgery on him.. or just have the right track for the next time I am feeling largely crafty for a project.

 Irons in the Fire:

 I have some baby toys in mind for someone at work - a repeat of Esme's 'mimsy' toys... have not gotten myself around to it - barely got my gear on this... have washed and dried four yards of fabric for more clothes and did not touch that all weekend...the school week plus social function took too much out of me.  More than I realized.  I didn't even have Wikipedia or any other science articles open all weekend.  I did discover French in Action  episodes and began to watch them.  I can feel my brain work on that - it threatened to go to sleep thinking about doing more math/science but it was up for language lessons (strange I know....)  Esme asked me about different languages being all Spanish or Chinese and which was where... so we talked about it a bit, and she still doesn't quite understand, but at least she is thinking about it.